Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - July 21, 2025

001to participate in the Andy Warhen golf outing and it was wonderful and there was a lot of familiar faces there and we thought it was going to rain most of the day but I think Andy uh had other plans for us so it was wonderful but it was a great day. Cool. Thank you. H I attended the uh guest bartender night at co's corner. Was that last Monday? Two Mondays ago. Two Mondays ago I think you are right in the pictures July flies by. Yeah, it's flying by. That was a great night to get out and interact with some of the staff and teachers and on a pretty pretty quiet night. Otherwise, I hosted a family reunion that weekend. So, it gave me a chance to kind of decompress, relax, and interact with the staff

002and teachers. So, that was a really fun night. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Piggy, for sharing that. Anyone else? Okay. Well, thank you for sharing that. We will now have our board committee reports starting with the business services on July 1st. Mrs. Hul or Mr. Hempy, do you have anything you would like to highlight or share from the business services committee minutes? Well, we did have a representative from Na Nania Energy Services come in um at the request of uh some more due diligence on looking at solar options. And that was a good presentation. and they're an organization. I think they're going to continue they're going to continue to look at and present to us multiple different options in addition to what we've presented the the month before. So, it's an ongoing thing and

003look forward to hearing more about options for solar in our district. Any questions for Mr. Hempy or Mrs. H? Okay, moving on to policy and personnel on July 17th. Um, Mrs. Young or Mr. Piggy, do you have anything you would like to highlight or share from the policy and personnel committee minutes? It was a very quick meeting and I appreciate that the point. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for Mrs. Mrs. Yoner or Mr. Py or Dr. Sharp for that matter? Okay, seeing none. Um, the following policies were discussed and carried forward from the policy and personnel committee for first reading. Um, policy col 80 board members oath and conduct. Policy col 130 board superintendent relationship policy uh 3 col 50 administrative personnel other than the superintendent. Policy 7 col40 public non-public school students

004including parochial and homeschool students part-time attendance policy 7 col 90 release during school hours policy col 140 search and seizure policy 7 col 325 student fundraising activities and policy 8 col 80 gifts to the district um again Mrs. Mrs. Young, Mr. Peggy, Dr. Shug, is there anything you would like to to say about any of its policies? I would just say most of the changes are very minimal and something the state requested. So, it's very easy to say. Yep. Anyone have any questions or concerns about these policies before they return next month for for board approval? The only the only one that substantively really changed was the 350. There was a bunch of the superintendent shells like a a list of the superintendent shell like 10 different things and I'm just curious is that something

005that covered somewhere else or is it something that I'm I'm curious why that was eliminated and why it was there in the first place and then why it was eliminated. Yeah, I think those those are great questions. Uh so as part of our annual policy review, we will be reviewing sections one, two, and three at the August board meeting in anticipation of that. Uh we've been going through those policies and those policies that are um significantly different from the press policies are ones that we are bringing forward to the committee. So next month you'll see a few more of these and determining if the board in fact does want to continue with the language as it is drafted or if they would prefer not to continue with that language and revert to the press document

006policies. Uh so we looked at that in terms of policy 740 uh which is one where we have diverted from the press language there and have adopted our own language. So we talked about that a little bit at this month's meeting. Uh and then policy 350 was changed in 2021 uh to reflect some very specific operational pieces. So this policy 350 takes some of those operational pieces out and keeps it more general in nature. Um most of our policies this one included uh then has uh essentially uh standard operating procedures that we follow to implement that. Uh so anything that is in there um would have specific procedures in terms of how we would follow it moving forward. Does that answer your question, Brian? I feel like maybe not. Um yeah, it does. Yeah, it

007um I mean the the other question is it those those shells weren't included for reason and curious is there is there not a need for that reason anymore? It's it seems like a bunch of it's a bunch of information on what information needs to be disseminated to the board and when it correct shall be disseminated to the board. Correct. I think the board at the time that this uh policy was adopted felt really strongly that they wanted some very specific procedures in place regarding administrative evaluation and I think that is what uh caused that policy to change. It was revised I think three times in 2021. So, this again uh goes back to that uh legal language that's in that press policy and the legacy board members opinion. I I my view is um this

008was overly prescriptive by a lot compared to what you would normally find. So, as Dr. Shug said, the the board at the time felt it was important, but um it's kind of hard to get behind that, I think. Keep it there. Thanks, Jeff. And I think this is reverting back to what press recommendations were with. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else have any questions or concerns about these policies before they return next month with board approval? Okay. All right. At this time, members of the public and employees of district 100 may make public comments. As a reminder, any person appearing before the board is expected to address the board and only at the appropriate time and follow the directions directives of the board president to maintain order and quorum. Identify oneself, limit comments to three minutes

009and conduct oneself with respect towards others and abide by board policy 8 col 30 visitors to and conduct on school property. Is there anyone here would like to make a pod? Yes. Um, tonight you take up here, Miss Griff. I'm a teacher. I don't They want to hear you. Um, proposed policy for student personal device usage. I'm going to be blunt. I'm not happy with the policy that we've ironed out. I joined the committee late and I believe most of what I missed was literature review. I know what the research says. I've read it on my own. But the process wasn't simply about research. The process was about compromise and about reaching consensus. Compromise is not arriving at a point where all parties are happy. Compromise is reaching the points the point where all parties

010land at their acceptable level of dissatisfaction. I believe this committee has arrived at that point. admin, teachers, students, and parents are each, for their own reasons, moderately dissatisfied with the outcome. That's how it should be. We need to see more of that in our national politics. Um, as a middle school teacher, I'm best suited to see this issue through the lens of middle school. I would like to share a few of my concerns the pro proposed policy addresses. First, there is no research that suggests that constant cell phone access and usage is good for students socially, emotionally, or academically. Second, in an emergency, and specifically in a lockdown situations, I have grave concerns with students in my classroom receiving phone calls from parents. My concern is not simply phones ringing. My concern is the students

011uncontrollable emotional response to a parent calling that compromises the safety of everyone in my classroom. And lastly, I have had a student take photos of me and post them to social media. I would like to remind parents that middle school students are not of an age where they can execute a binding contract. So those cell phones are not in fact the students. Pictures, videos, and recordings of staff without their consent are actually captured on the parents phone. I would encourage admin and staff with the EA assistance to pursue these personal intrusions. As such, I'm asking the board tonight to approve the proposed policy as submitted to require admin and staff to implement the policy with fidelity. Those of you that know me have heard those words before. and to arrange for periodic review of the

012policy's effectiveness. So, I don't want this to be a one and done thing that we we come back and revisit it to see if we need to loosen or tighten. And that's my commentary for tonight. Thank you, Mrs. Griffith. Anyone else that would like to address the board? Yes, I would. I like using this though. Looks looks looks better. All right. Please state your name if you would mind. Uh, Robert Hower. Okay. And I live in Belvadier Township. Thank you. I am here because I feel we are doing a less than acceptable job educating our kids. I no longer have children in the district, but I do have grandchildren who live in this school district and within the next four or five years they will be going here. I have in all honesty honesty neglected

013to pay attention to the declining test scores until I realized my children will be here in a few years. We are in the bottom half of school districts in Illinois. The average proficiency for 11th grade math is under 10%. The Illinois average is not good, but at 26 is still considerably better. The ELA is under 20%. The Illinois average again is at 30%. Which is not particularly good but still better. We have been on a general decline and typically worse than the state average for several years. We have 100% of the teachers rated proficient or excellent. We have added teachers in total. Since 2012, we've gone from 480 to 564 teachers. Total students have declined since 2011 from 8739 to 7407. So about 1300 students less. Meanwhile, the cost of education has increased from 86

014million or so in 2012 to in the neighborhood of 154 million. So we have good to excellent teachers, more of them, less students, and spending considerably more money for what looks through testing anyway to be a less than successful education for our kids. I realize we are always at least a year behind in the numbers. So these are all from 24. In conclusion, we need to find an answer and preferably before we lose the next class of students. I realize new plans have been formulated in the last decade and worked at. The numbers show we have not succeeded and in fact we have typically gotten worse. I have come to the hopefully wrong conclusion that we have come to accept failure is the norm and are okay with it. We need to turn this around.

015Our kids deserve better than what we have done in the past several years. I gave most of the same speech before. So, some of you this is just a a redo, but it seems like it didn't make that much of a difference. Now, we have a new school board and maybe that will make the difference. Maybe that will provide the change we need. I cannot believe any of you want to be part of a 90% failure rate. I hope you become obsessed with finding a solution that works and following through with it. To be in the bottom 50% of school districts in Illinois cannot be what you want your legacy to be. I will leave you with this quote which you all know very well. Our goal is to cultivate academic success so that our

016students become lifelong learners, innovators, and contributors to society. I would be happy to provide any of these numbers to you. It's all off the District 100 website though. So all the numbers come from you guys. And that is all. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hower. Is there anyone else that would like to address the board? Didn't mean to you. It's all right. Okay. My name is Matt. Know who I am. Um, want to talk about a couple things. Um, first of all, the cell phone policy. I read it. It's not that I'm against. I'm not trying to speak against. I just want to make sure that when you institute something like this, you're prepared for the worst case scenario on punishment for these kids that violate the policy. Too often, whether it be dress

017code or something else, we institute policies and then when it gets when the when the worst case scenario happens, we're not willing to follow through with it. So, make sure that whatever you institute as punishments for these that you're willing to follow through with whatever they are, whether it be suspending kids, you know, Saturday school, whatever. Because if you don't, you're going to lose a lot of credibility. And I can tell you from 40 years, over 40 years, you're going to get tested on this by more than one person, whether it be a parent, student, or all of them. Now, moving on to the SIP plans, um we we have 10 schools in the district that are traditional schools. Looking at the board agenda and the SIP plans are going to be approved tonight. Five

018of them are either targeted or commendable. That means five are on what I would call the naughty list of the state due to one category, two cate some cases two categories. One of them I wanted to mention in particular without um me and obviously has been over five years. Uh so I think when even when Mr. Hower was just talking, we can talk about scores, we can talk about all that stuff, but I think a lot of it comes down to accountability. Every time I read, every time I read literature for people running to be on the school board, accountability and transparency are always prominent on there. But it seems to me that I I failed to see where that accountability's come to fruition in these cases. For example, Central when my kids went there

019and some of you that are here had kids same time mine were there. Central was not on the watch list of anything. They were one of the better middle schools in the state. their principal was named principal of the year, but through a bunch more than one administration, that school has had five or six principles in the last 13 years. So, I'm not saying it's anybody's fault. I'm just saying that's a reality that we brought upon our ourselves. Excuse me. Um, when we look at accountability, we look at I looked at central, one of theirs was um data is not systematically reviewed by teams. common high quality instruction practices are not in place consistently. I'm pretty sure central has a marzano number two um number two designation which says effective class effective teaching in all

020classrooms. So we've done that in all the schools around here or past level two or more yet obviously something must have gone wrong there. So where's the accountability? I mean I I haven't seen any accountability on that on dual language scores. Look at the dual language scores. But lastly, I think the one that's more more pertinent to me is the board has one person to evaluate and that's a superintendent. Yeah. When it came time to evaluating the superintendent this time, they didn't do it my last I didn't do it in my time there. So, they didn't do it before April before the new board was seated with five new board members. So, we believe in accountability. We probably should have started there instead of some other place. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Zicker. Is there

021anyone else that would like to address the board? Okay. Next on the agenda are our consent agenda items. Are there any items on the consent agenda any members of the board would like to take out for separate consideration here? And after after that uh discussion and a little bit of looking at the SI and not really fully understanding the background behind SI, I would like to move to remove that from consent. If it's not required to be approved today and have more discussion about SI, you can remove it from consent as well and just discuss it and then vote on it as well. Uh so that would be another way to to do that. Okay. Yeah. So I noticed there's five five schools that are on a So we'll first we'll we'll remove it from

022consent. then we'll vote on the consent items and then we'll come back and discuss it. Yes. Thank you. So, member Hempy is requesting to have item number nine, school improvement plans removed. Any other requests? Okay. Do I have a motion and a second to approve all consent I agenda items not requested to be pulled as presented? So move. Okay. Second. Member Hul made a motion and member Young seconded the motion to approve all consent item agenda items not requested to be pulled as presented. Discussion. Roll call, please. Mrs. Hulk. Hi, Mrs. Young. Hi, Mr. Diesel. Hi, Mr. Piggy. Hi, Mr. Hempy. Hi, Mr. Mueller. Hi. And Mr. Carrera, I Okay. Do I have a motion and a second to approve consent the item number nine as presented? So moved. Okay. Do I have a second?

023Second. Okay. Member Hempy made a motion. Member H second the motion. Oh, it okay. Let me see. I didn't hear that right over here. Was motion to approve. Um approve and then we'll have discussions. So, member Piggy made a motion and member Hal seconded the motion to approve consent agenda item number nine as presented. Discussion. Yes. So, um, can I learn a little bit more about the summitive designation of targeted school improvement? You absolutely can. And I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Johnson on this. Sounds good. Um, this piece is a little bit confusing because these plans have actually already been approved. They've just been updated. So, they've been approved by the board. Um, the state, as you can imagine, receiving federal dollars are under more uh restrictions and so they needed more

024detail in the plans. So, we were able to put some of that detail in there and the state is requiring that the board approve them so that these schools can receive their school improvement funding through a grant. So, the grant I wrote this summer and um pending approval, if you decide to vote on that tonight, releases those funds so that the schools can continue their work. So, that's the background as to why it's on here tonight, but the designations and a little bit more information on that. The designations come out each fall when they release the what they call the Illinois report card. And at Ed Services, uh Dr. Carson and I go through um which is where our schools uh fell. It's a very um complicated but well done matrix uh for schools that

025look at growth and proficiency. They look at graduation rates for high schools, students on track, um some data with our English language learners, attendance is a big piece of that. And depending on where it falls in the formula, um many of our schools in this case, the reason why they're on plans is because they had a targeted subgroup that wasn't at a level the state needed them to be. They have thresholds for that. Um when that happens then schools go through a cycle with Dr. Carson and myself um that the state requires that involves like a root cause analysis. It revol it involves um a needs assessment. Um we're required to pair up with a Illinois provider which is like a professional development agency things along those lines. Um when a school is designated as

026as targeted or comprehensive. So we spend a lot of time on that every um November I think in ed services um with the ed services committee and then with with the board as well um in much greater detail. Um it's just for this the plans came out in May in most cases for these schools. Some of these plans are a year or two old and the state in order to receive the federal dollars was required to ask for more information on the plans. But the initiatives are all the same. Um the school improvement teams work on them. They've been reviewed uh by the board. Again, they're just requiring more information before they'll release us our our funds for the year. So every school every every school in the state is um is evaluated on a

027set of criteria six or so groupings of metrics. Correct. And it seems like it would be common it would be fairly common for school to to maybe not meet one out of those. Um has it how long has the state been doing this? Um we started just before COVID they changed this particular methods about 2018 2019 was one some of the first um sets of data then there was a pause for this uh some of the co years um some of the schools end up um not some I should say when a school ends up as targeted or comprehensive um what happens is you're you have a what do they call it like a learning year what's the first year like a planning year and then you're on the cycle for three years because they

028really believe that without the four years, one planning and three of following through you can't make significant change. So for many of our schools they're targeted one year, but the next year they pop back up right away. Um but that status remains for four years. So like me is an example of that where they did pop up to commendable but unfortunately on that last year a subgroup popped up happened to be the same subgroup and then that's what knocked them down to comprehensive. So there's all these like little nuances and and rules that kind of come come with it. Um but for our schools on these plans many of them pop up to commendable within a year or two. It's just they remain in that status for four years. And and then when we enact

029a plan, we receive grant money that's that must be appropriated to conducting that plan. Yes. Correct. Yep. And so um if you're targeted, they have certain allocations. If you're comprehensive, you receive more funding um each each year. Uh it's been inconsistent on how much funding. Um and so we we don't have the exact dollar amount until our grant opens. Um our grant has opened and in general has been approved. It's just they asked um all the schools in the state to go back add more details to their plan per what was being asked of them um and then they require a u updated school board approval. So are we falling short? Like we have three elementary schools. Are we falling short in the same category at each school? So, um, couple of our schools are

030English learners and a couple of them are children with disabilities. Um, one of the schools was two or more races. Um, so you have to have at least 20 in a grade level to make up a subgroup. So what happened at that particular school is they had that subgroup then that subgroup enough of them had moved up to nth grade that for a year there they didn't have the subgroup and then the subgroups back. So uh the planning for that school was a little bit more broad to just at risk students at at that point because um when you're right on the cusp of 20 students in a grade level sometimes you have enough and sometimes you don't. So schools like Perry and Calonia often don't have those subgroups because they don't have 20 in

031a grade to make it enough to be recorded. Whereas a school for example like Washington has almost everyone possible. So is it possible you said November you discuss it at at services. Is it possible since we do have a new board that you could bring an update after that meeting and then because I do think we we have talked about it but a lot of us probably don't understand yes what it means yet. I'd be happy to I like geek out about it. There's the matrix and everything that happens there. It's we'll have an update before it comes back. Yes. So what ends up happening is um the state releases it um right around Halloween each year. So whether it's a little bit before a little bit after it gets released, all the designations are

032on there and that's usually what prompts the ED services meeting um to go through that that information. That SI grant money, how is that money used or how does that money help? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so with the the state requires that you uh partner up um with an Illinois provider um which is an outside company and you want to match that with what your need is. So BHS was a good example with um English learners and they were able to partner up um on SCOP which I'm going to butcher. It's sheltered uh sheltered instruction observation protocol. Thank you. Um training that is specific for um English learners in a general education classroom strategies that any teacher could use. Um and so for example, the school improvement funding um could have um I

033could have written the grant to pay for the provider to do the training, the stipens to pay the staff if the training was in the summer. uh benefits. Then if you're going to do a sip, there's benefits for it. There's materials. That's another line item. Um so things along those lines is is how a school um when they're going through their school improvement plan, they're also considering that there's some money with it. So that helps them not be as limited with what their plans are. Um they're not just solely focused on their typical local school budget for the year. um they have um more money um for example, if they want to do some release time throughout the year for some teachers to work on some things um periodically, then we might cover a sub

034substitute cost. Um those are other ways that you can use the grant. There's a whole bunch of rules of the dos and don'ts um of it, but we we've learned it pretty well um over the years. Like I can't buy furniture. Like there's certain things that like, you know, for example, that's a that's a no no. You can't do travel out of or uh conferences out of state. It won't pay for travel. So there's like little nuances, right? That makes sense. Any other questions for Dr. Johnson? Thanks for providing that information was helpful. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Y All right. Um any further discussion? Roll call, please. All right. Mr. Piggy, hi. Mrs. Help. Hi, Mrs. Young. Hi, Mr. Hempy. Hi, Mr. Diesel. Hi, Mr. Mueller. Hi, Mr. Herrera. Hi. Okay, next on the agenda

035are our roll call agenda items starting with U. Bevier education support team agreement for your contract from 2025 to 2029. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the Bevier Education Support Team Agreement for the years 2025 through 2029 as presented? Oh, thank you. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Okay, so um you go a motion. Okay. Do we have second? Oh, you Okay. Uh Junk and Diesel Meer. Yep. So, member Yunk made the motion and member Diesel Meer seconded the motion to approve the Bodier Education Support Team Agreement for the years 2025 through 2029 for your contract as presented. Any discussion? I would like to just I see the vice president of best out there and um um wanted to say all of the Paris um thank you for all you do. You guys

036work negotiations. It was obvious how much you love your job. So, uh we appreciate you. Any other comments, questions, discussion? See none. Roll call, please. All right. Mrs. Hi, Mr. Hi. Mr. Piggy. Hi, Mr. Hempy. Hi, Mrs. H. Hi, Mr. Mueller. Hi, Mr. Herrera. Hi. Okay, motion passes. Uh, do I have a motion and a second to approve Joanne Armstrong, CFO/ COO and board treasurer as the individual designated to prepare the tenative budget for fiscal year 2026 as presented? I move second. Member Hempy made the motion. Member Mueller seconded the motion to approve Joanne Armstrong CFO COO and for treasurer as the individual designated to prepare the tentative budget for fiscal year 2026 as presented. Any discussion none roll call please. Mr. Hempy. Hi. Mr. Mueller. Hi. Mrs. Hulk. Hi. Mr. Piggy. Hi. Mrs. Yon.

037Hi. Mr. Diesel. Hi. Mr. Dere. Hi. Passes. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the cell phone and electronic device use policy as presented? Make motion. Second. I'll second. Okay. Okay. Member Yn made the motion and member Piggy seconded the motion to approve the cell phone and electronic device use policy as presented. Discussion. I just wanted to highlight a few of the pieces that you see here. uh we pulled together a uh research study team that consisted of 32 stakeholders uh who as Miss Griffith was one of those stakeholders um and could attest to we had people uh truly on all sides of the spectrum uh representing um students who maybe wanted absolutely no cell phone restrictions uh to parents and staff who would like to see no cell phones at school

038at all. Uh this also uh included discussion about smartwatches and earbuds uh all of the different electronic devices that come to school. Um and also as Miss Griffith alluded to, we spent the first part of those meetings uh doing research. These are research study teams for a reason. uh we pulled the research and really looked into it and it was very very clear uh that student wellness and in the best interest of student wellness restrictions to cell phones are absolutely necessary. Um and as we dug further into that research it becomes more uh more and more evident that those devices do in fact impair students ability to learn effectively in the classroom. Uh I would say that diverse group of stakeholders um agreed on that in terms of what was clear and consistent in the

039research. Uh we then surveyed all of our uh students and families and I have uh as I think I said last month, I've been in this district and administered I don't know how many surveys. Uh I would say we do at least 10 a year. I have never seen the level of response that we received for this survey. over 1,700 people uh reached out and provided their opinions. We we're so grateful. Uh Miss Hadley, our communications um staff member uh said uh you know, when you got a survey, you got to listen to it. Uh we cannot send out surveys and not be responsive to the information that's going out there. As such, we saw again the spectrum of responses, but most people were somewhere in the middle. So, we really wanted to balance the

040student wellness uh being uh being the leading factor that we knew we had to do something, but we also knew we didn't want to be so extreme uh that our parents and our families were going to feel like they couldn't contact their children when it was necessary andor at times convenient, right? Uh so trying to figure out how to navigate those uh was no easy task and involved a great deal of discussion. But what we have in front of you tonight, I think uh does does a pretty good job of getting at that middle ground uh where no one is quite happy. Uh so um general expectations are that devices must be put away and not in use during instructional periods. And then those personal devices are defined as really any wearable technology. Okay. Earbuds,

041phones, all of those items are not to be out and in use uh during instructional time periods. At the elementary, all of our students will be expected to keep those personal devices in their lockers throughout the day. So, at the elementary level, again, research absolutely clear that our elementary level students really should not be having access to these devices. At the middle school, uh things got a little bit trickier. Um but personal devices right now are not allowed during those instructional times. We wanted to maintain that. So those devices are to be stored in lockers at the middle school as well. However, they may be used at the lunch hour. Uh there was quite a bit of conversation about should they or should they not be able to be used at the lunch hour. Uh

042and we really uh compromised on this particular piece to say this is what we're going to recommend at this time and then we will be evaluating it. We have actually a meeting tomorrow with the cell phone uh team and then we'll be meeting again in October to see how this went. Uh was it too restrictive or not restrictive enough in terms of that middle school lunch and any of these other pieces at the high school. Uh students may use their cell phones before school, after school, during passing periods and during the lunch hour. However, when they arrive in those high school classrooms, they are going to be required to store those phones uh during instructional time. The phones are able to be there. They will be in proximity to those students, but they will be

043stored during that time period. Uh that will look like something like a cell phone locker or a pouch. Uh those are the details that we'll be ironing out. Assuming the board approves this this evening, uh we will be following up with that and any other feedback that the board gives the team. We'll be discussing that uh in further detail tomorrow. Um there are exceptions and flexibility as you can see in those uh in that proposal. Uh clearly we're going to provide modifications for those students who have IEPs and 504s and require things. For example, a student who is diabetic may need to access their blood sugar. uh a student who has sight problems or um vision issues may need to have a magnifying uh device provided by that cell phone. There's any number of different

044reasons. However, we also committed as a team to make our very best effort uh to make other options available wherever possible. Um we also have some opt out in terms of emergencies and again that is a definition that's in that proposal. Uh and we also will have some uh additional options for classes in which for example you need a camera uh and perhaps your cell phone is the best camera available. However, those will all require administrative approval. Uh so again just trying to be really really consistent. Um I'm going to just take one minute to say what is not included in the proposed policy. The policy does not permit individual teachers to set their own phone policies. We had a group of 32 stakeholders that didn't agree on much, but one thing they absolutely agreed

045on was this cannot be put on the back of the individual teacher. Uh we need a system structure in place so that the teachers can be engaging in what they are hired to do uh teaching in those classrooms and it's our responsibility as a district to provide the structure to allow that to happen. This does not fully ban cell phones from campus and it does not place enforcement responsibility solely on teachers. So that is the proposal that is before you uh today. Questions, feedback, comments? You have a lot to do before the start of school year. That is a true statement, Mr. Hemi. And I so I mean you could elaborate on that but I also appreciate I I noticed next steps are to re-evaluate in October so very quickly re-evaluate evaluate how it's going

046and be able to make adjustments if necessary and I think that's really important. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. The team felt that that was very important as well. um making sure that this isn't a oneshot deal, that we're going to evaluate it, see if we need to make this stricter, less strict, uh and what the teachers and the students and parents need. Is this an ongoing committee then or like when we're evaluating it next year's what is it the same committee? Is it just admin? Where do we go at that point? We have this committee that will be in place uh again tomorrow to have our follow-up meeting and then they have on their uh invites October 6th. Uh so it is fully my anticipation that this committee will stay in place to continue

047to evaluate uh this work and if we need to uh look at that membership, we lose some of our stakeholders, some of our senior students, things like that, uh we will re-evaluate that as need be and we would always welcome a board member to join that team as well. This says a tier consequence system. What does that mean? That's a great question, Mr. Piggy. So, we do have um a discipline guide that talks about technology violations and what that might look like, but we also have different levels of enforcement that are happening at each of our sites regarding that cell phone uh or other electronic uh devices. Uh so we are going to again provided the board approves this this will be part of the conversation we have next uh tomorrow to say if a

048student has a violation so you're supposed to put your phone in your cell phone locker. Uh however uh a student neglects to do that or they put some you know old phone in there and they've got their real phone still on them or whatever the case may be. Right. Uh because students like adults uh will find strategies Uh so we know that uh so if that is the case what is going to be the consequence for that? I think we heard Mr. Zickert say pretty clearly at the beginning of this meeting as well if we don't enforce something uh we can expect that this will fail and we can expect that students uh will test this. Uh so determining exactly what that's going to look like at each one of our schools uh or each

049uh level across the district so that each student knows what to expect and each administrator has support for that practice. Is it up to the teachers to enforce this or is this anybody can enforce it? Well, it will be um I'm not quite exactly understand your your question. Can I guess who can I guess enforce the consequences? Mhm. Okay. So, in in a classroom, the teacher is going to be able to enforce some level of consequence, right? I mean, your first step likely is going to be put your phone away, put your phone in the cell locker. Uh and then the second step might be, for example, to put that phone in a pouch and seal it up. Okay? Uh the administration is going to be involved at the appropriate level to address that. Again,

050our goal is not to put this solely on the back of the teachers, to provide that administrative support, and also to provide a really clear tiered consequence system so nobody's making up what they're doing in those classrooms when there's a violation. There's a clear system to support them. Okay. So, when you talk about the pouch or the the locker, have we purchased those things already? We have not. Uh we do have some pouches that are available in the district right now. Uh and we do have several options for um how we might proceed with those different options uh for those classrooms. Uh if it's pouches, if it's lockers, if it's a combination of both. I I fully support this. I think this is excellent. I think it's so needed. I just worry that we don't

051have enough time to communicate it effectively and get all the things that we need before school starts in a month. Barbie, can we share your concerns? Um and uh you know it's funny uh at the end of the year you know I had cell phone cell phone is a summer project and the the weeks took by very very quickly. Uh we do believe that we're going to be moving you know we're hitting the ground running as fast as we can. We absolutely believe the communication is going to be key on this. Uh so we're going to get that information out. We have to make a decision on what that storage device is going to be. Uh so tomorrow we're really going to drill into that conversation so that we can get that facilitated. Those cell

052phone lockers are relatively inexpensive to purchase. Uh they come through pretty quickly. Uh I feel pretty confident we can get those things in place. Uh and I feel pretty confident in those communications, but is it a tight deadline? Yes, Miss Young, it is a tight deadline. I also would just raise a little bit of concern for the teachers themselves because they are going to have to be doing the policing and they're going to have to be doing and I just want to make sure that we fully support them. I mean, we're going to have some angry parents. Yep. Um, we're going to have some angry kids and I just want to make sure that our teachers are fully supported in rolling this out. 100% agree with you. I think that's absolutely the key to our

053success and why we haven't been able to be effective thus far because individual teachers are trying to enforce um a policy on their own and I think we really need to rally behind that and and provide that support but there's definitely going to be some at least initially some difficult conversations. So we hope that our parents and families will help support us as well. It will establish some good communication for the community, for the parents with a full why we're doing this and Yeah. Yeah. And what the committee really said, you know, is again that we're going to lead with that why. Uh so that is really the intention is to lead with the why. Mr. Bell, anything you would add? I know you sat on that team. uh the principles, the high school principles

054are the ones that really came through and they wanted this policy in place to help them in this whole entire um situation as well. So, just to put that one out there, I know the concern about the teachers is a valid one that came up numerous times on the committee that it's not just the teachers in this whole entire process. So, um yeah, I think majority of the things that we hit in the in the committee came out tonight as well. Thank you, Mr. Bell. Um, and I think just having a one unified policy for the district on this will help address many of those issues for both the teachers and everybody to be on the same page going forward with this with this policy. So, uh, any other further discussion TNN roll call, please.

055All right. Mrs. Young, hi. Mr. Piggy, hi. Mr. Mueller, hi. Mrs. Hul, hi. Mr. Hempky, hi. Mr. Dieseler, hi. Mr. Herrera, I motion passes. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the bilingual handbook as presented? So move. Second. Member Hal made the motion and um member Piggy seconded the motion to approve the bilingual handbook as presented. Any discussion? We do have Mr. Manduhano here. Uh Mr. Manduhano, did you want to highlight anything? Yeah. So, uh, about a year ago or so, we we had a committee that kind of got together and we did some, uh, an evaluation, a review basically of our programs. And one of the things that came out of the review was that we needed some sort of a handbook that we one-stop shop uh, type of a document

056that would uh, support our staff and our teachers, what our bilingual policies are, um, what's the purpose behind it. um given some uh opportunities where they could find some professional development, what some of the the verbiage is. Um as you guys all know, we we like to use acronyms in education. So kind of help them with that portion. So, uh, we started this, um, and hopefully you guys approve it, um, to kind of just support our teachers and our staff and, you know, as time goes on, if we need to make changes or whatnot, obviously we'll take a look at that, uh, review it on a yearly basis and there's changes that need to be made and bring that back. Any questions for Mr. Montano or Dr. Sh? Is this the first bilingual handbook that

057we've published as a district? Since I've been here, yes, we haven't had another another one. Not that I'm aware of. Um, probably prior before that before me maybe. I I haven't seen one since I've been here. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? Was it uh was it modeled after any any other handbook or was it completely self? No. So we uh asked other districts um if they would share some of their uh their handbooks and so forth. So within the committee we just kind of got together looked at other handbooks and then just kind of put one together on our own and uh just using the examples of some nice. Okay. Thanks. Yes. Okay. Any further questions for Mr. Mandano? Thank you, Mr. Mandano, for your work on the uh on the handbook. Um, roll

058call, please. Mrs. H. Hi, Mr. Piggy. Hi, Mr. Hempy. Hi, Mrs. Young. Hi, Mr. Mueller. Hi, Mr. Dome. Hi, Mr. Herrera. I Okay, motion passes. The following items have been added for discussion or will be coming up for further review and or possible action in the future. Background information has been provided and the board may ask questions or and or request clarification at this time. Um this so therefore facilities master plan at this time would you like to uh we would like to invite Nexus up to present an updated overview of District 100's facilities planning and budget work. The goal is to confirm and fine-tune the scope and cost of upcoming projects, making sure they reflect today's construction market and support the district's long-term goals. Since the original estimates were estimates were based on 2023

059data, the Nexus team has adjusted and moved toward a more comprehensive budgeting approach that looks at the full picture. At at this time, we would like to invite the folks from Nexus Good evening. Uh thank you for having us uh this evening. It's uh I had a chance to meet with the board uh back in in March, but obviously there's several new members. Uh my name is Mike David. I'm the president of Nexus Solutions. With me tonight is Hans Null, our senior project development engineer and a proud native of Rockford, and Lauren Wner, our client executive. We actually have a team of client executives. Uh we also have Jeff Mangan. Uh many of you know Jeff. He he wasn't able to be here tonight, but we have two of them that will be working on

060the account to make sure that everything is delivered the way you want it to be. Appreciate you giving us a few minutes. What we Oops. What we want to do is is update you on uh what we've been doing the last several months, kind of where things are at budget-wise and scope-wise. talk about the the work that we have completed to date, update you on where we are budget and scope-wise. There have been some adjustments up and down. Uh we will introduce you to our FIM summary overview. Uh like in education, we uh in our business, we also have a lot of acronyms. FIM is facility improvement measure. Uh it's a summary tool, more a project or a project selection tool that we use to help organize all the information, help you prioritize and and

061make project selections. And then we'll talk about what the next steps are. Uh and I say questions at the end, but please feel free to ask me questions along the way. [Music] when the uh district was uh putting the uh or doing the facility study, you you went more of a uh traditional route with hiring architect. And through the process, I believe that the administration recognized that there'd be benefit of of having a firm that had beyond just architectural skills, but that had planning, design, and and construction skills as well. They also saw the value of of having single source accountability. So you had one firm to manage instead of an an entire team of of consultants. What we find and Nexus was fortunate enough to be selected. Uh what our clients have consistently told

062us is that they really value that we have one entity to hold accountable. It allows your administrative team to oversee the project but really spend their time managing the district. Let Nexus manage the the the project and using a completely transparent u approach. the services that we provide literally from start to finish from planning, assisting with funding, design, construction, commissioning, and then uh cause conservation as well. So really a one-stop shop. Following selection by the board back in March, we uh immediately got to work. I think it was literally the next day and uh we started by taking a look at Uh for those of you that have been on the board, this should look fairly familiar. We started by taking a look at all of the work that had already been done. There there

063was a lot of great work that had been done and what we wanted to do was deeply immerse ourselves into that. So we started by studying the existing facility reports. And one of the things that we noticed and and and quite common that the report is organized by school and then by design discipline. So you've got architecture and interiors, exterior and sight, plumbing, mechanical, electrical, etc., etc. And to uh technical professionals, that makes complete sense to what I refer to as normal people. Um, not so much sense. They tend to look at things more on I want to improve this area, what needs to be done, okay? And not how does it get sliced down in in different design areas. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with the way the current report was put together. But

064um what you'll see later in the presentation when we talk about this project selection tool or or the the FIM sum as we call it the the facility improvement measure summary table is that that's also organized in spreadsheet format but it's organized on a uh on an improvement by improvement basis. So it's just something that's a little more user friendly. It's uh something that again we've had a a lot of of good luck with. Once we had a good understanding of the work that had already been done, then we rolled up our shirt sleeves and got to work on site. Hans led a team that visited every single site. Not only did they visit the site, so I guess what we're trying to emphasize is we didn't do this work uh from back in the

065office or in cubicles. We we did it out on site, physically inspected. So we took all all the reports that have been done and part of our job was to validate the the the existing work and uh we went out we we spoke with staff members at at every site you know so not only to physically look at it but to hear from them on uh what uh what they liked what their highest priorities were and u we did the not only were we inside the buildings but we did the hard hardcapes as well. When I talk about hardcapes those are in simple terms sidewalks, parking lots, things of that nature. uh that there was a fair amount of work planned there as well. So we wanted to get a better idea of of what

066and why. We then took it further and and went from just uh uh basic estimates. We went and started putting together uh preliminary conceptual designs. So that basically allows us to take the the budgets and and refine them uh that much further. Started to run those by the staff just to get uh get their feedback on how we solve the problems. With this, we uh we re-evaluated and updated all of all of the uh the budgets. You know, one of the things to keep in mind is that when the budgets were put together, that was 2023. The first year that actual work would be done is 2026. Uh inflation in in the construction market has been averaging about 7% a year. So compounded that's 20 to 25% difference. So there are some significant changes, but

067it is reality. What we want to make sure is that once we are ready to design and and implement the work, we want to make sure that we have the the the the appropriate budget. Keep in mind that the Nexus doesn't self-perform any of the trade contractor work, which represents 85 to 90% of the total budget. We competitively bid everything and then we manage all of the subcontractors. We we mentioned how we use a holistic budgeting approach and and again the the the approach that's been been done here is is completely normal. It's a it's a normal project development approach where you start with with construction budgets and then you start to build them out with how are we actually going to implement the project. And then we built the project selection tool which would

068be the tool being used going forward to again prioritize and and select individual projects. So, with all that work done, Hans is uh is going to talk us through um kind of what he saw, just give you a few highle examples, and then uh share with us kind of how how the budgets are updated, and I'll show you how everything fits together. Thanks, Mike. So, I've got a quick for those of you guys that aren't uh intimate with the building, just got a quick uh photo tour. Some of the stuff we saw, you'll hear us talk about this phase one project. Um there's phase two ultimately coming also. Some of the stuff is is is in both of them. But again want to give you just a high level idea starting with mechanical electrical. Um

069really want to focus on here is the upper right we Washington elementary school. Those are unitary devices throughout the building that provide heating and cooling. They've reached that into their life. Frankly the same devices are in this building too. So uh that's a critical improvement as part of the phase one projects. also the electrical panels that go along with them. We'll talk about um that holistic approach. Obviously, if there's electrical panels that are 50 60 years old that are connected to those unitary equipment, this is the time to replace those along with the feeders, right? Uh looking at the hardcape and the site areas, you know, the district's done a pretty good job with the hardcapes. These are always there's always going to be older hard skates. We want to try and phase them. Um

070this district's no different. These these pictures show um some cracking in the uh the asphalt uh cracking in the the concrete or there's potential trip hazard. Want to get that included in phase one. Uh some of that we'll we'll defer to phase two which we'll talk about in a second. Uh last thing uh safer more secure entrances. Um important to point out uh the district does have secure entrances uh by way of having a buzzer uh to come into the building. Visitors can't just walk in. They have to buzz in. uh can't the folks in the main office can see who's coming in before they allow them in. That next step in the secure entrance is to uh to to usher those folks straight to either a main office or you know a holding area

071where there's somebody there to see them face to face. They need to bring somebody from the school if they don't need to go into the school bring them down whether it's a teacher or student rather than having them go in school. There's one building in the district that has that that's Seth Whitman. The other buildings don't. So um again the focus really on these phase one projects which we'll talk about is um infrastructure mechanical electrical some site work a little bit of roofing work which I didn't talk about and then those uh improved in the state in those buildings make sense um Mike talked a little bit about the budget reassessment the scope reassessment there is uh there's some more costs to the projects that were originally um approved D or reviewed and approved developed

072uh 3 years ago. Um three main buckets and reasons why those pricing has gone up that we want to focus with. Number one um the original budgets were construction only. So that's pretty typical of consultants about that time during development is provide construction only or bid day budgets. What that does not include is the soft cost. So the cost to pay engineers, architects to put plans together that get state approved that get bid out. uh that doesn't include general conditions, you know, the fencing that needs to go up, you know, potentially um temporary routes for uh for safe students, safe staff, safe visitors during construction if we're doing that during the school year. Um there's contingency that's not accounted for. So, those are the soft costs. So, right right away, uh there's a little bit

073of deficit in those original budgets. Two, uh design discipline versus the holistic budget. I'll talk about this in the next slide, but Mike kind of touched on it. There's a lot of interaction between improvements, right? And and that consult that original report had all the cart menu which is very typical. But obviously if we're going to we're going to replace air hailing unit, there's electrical work that goes along with that. There's some uh uh general work and the fact that we might need some new uh shafts, some new uh sockets, potentially some structural. So we got to account for that and that's in the report, but you got to connect the dots when you break it out those disciplines the way they did. So, uh, and then lastly, outdated market assumptions. Mike said it already,

074you know, those were estimated three years ago. Year on year, we're seeing, uh, 7%. So, already we're about 20 25%. Not all the budgets, uh, as we rebudgeted all the projects that were in it and not all of them were more. If we found some some savings either through scope or just feel that we can we can do them less expensive, we've done a less expensive. So some went down to the majority of a little bit more that you uh the board had originally seen and approved the roof path phase one. All right, a little bit more detail and I know it's tough to see, but this is an example straight out of that report where uh this is Washington mechanical two line items that were included. Um and really there's three more in there

075that should have been included. Again, some of them have to be done. Some of them it's good engineering practice to be done, right? you can't replace the the air handling units or the devices without doing those um without uh doing the DDC or the DAS controls that go along with them, right? That wouldn't be pretty. So, this is just one example of a number of of of scope items that we we put a holistic project together. We're trying to be consultative to make sure uh the community, the staff, the students get the proper project. Building off that, again, a little bit tough to see. Three years ago, that consulting firm budgeted $45 per square foot. Three years ago, that was about right. We're using about $55 per square foot now. So, we've updated those budgets.

076We've included the electrical. We've included the general work that I've talked about. So, that accounts for some of the uh additional costs that we're looking at. And then lastly, not budgeting, but but trying to rescope the project a little bit. Uh construction sequencing. We found some opportunity work. We're looking at doing some asphalt. We said, "Well, let's hold off on asphalt um until like phase two, right? We don't want to have construction equipment growing over brand new asphalt to put in new air handling units, new electrical equipment. Um it does it still needs to be done, but let's phase this properly. We've got a picture of roofing. Same thing goes for roofing. Rather than doing mechanical electrical upgrades where we're undoubtedly going to have roof penetrations, they end up getting patched. We don't want to

077do that on a new roof. We'd like to let's get that work done. Patch the older roof. We can then come in with a brand new roof only warrantied and not to say it's not going to have penetrations. There's not going to be more work in the next 40 years, but at least the foreseeable future. For the foreseeable future, we'll have one monolithic roof system that's got a warranty on it. Make sense? Went through that very quickly. Um, but just again trying to highlight, you know, some of that work that we went through as we validated that original scope. itemized some of those scopes, cleaned up some of the scopes and validated those budgets so that we can can give uh like I said give the board give the district a holistic improvement. Okay, the

078uh now moving on to the project selection tool or the facility improvement measure summary table. Um really the uh the advantages of this tool or what it's designed to do is first off is it's designed to help us again organize our our project scopes by uh by facility and it provides clarity again so that you know that each and individual line item is mutually independent. Okay. So it just helps in terms again prioritizing selecting projects. It really helps us in terms of planning the project going forward. helps us to prioritize because we can also uh provide objective datadriven uh analysis to each individual line item. Uh it allows us to kind of play what if games, pick and choose, click items in and out. Not only see what what the project what that individual line

079item does to the total project cost, but what it does in terms of tax impact to to the the the community overall that rolls into our financial planning tool uh as well as the cash flow integration. So, we aren't only looking at a list of improvements that sums up to a total, but we're linking that to a financial plan that shows how the project is financed. I should have pointed this out when I show our little org chart of services, but if if you're looking closely, you'd see that your financial advisor is still a member of the team. We are not in any way, shape, or form uh displacing or replacing steel or or or PMA. Our tools are just meant so that instantaneously as we're picking and choosing items, we don't only see what

080what they cost, but they see what what they cost to the local community. Again, it's a very efficient project selection tool. Stif PMA before any final decisions are made, we bring the project back to them. They they've been we've had many meetings with them already to help develop the the cash flow analysis tool, but then prior to any final board decisions being made, we bring the project back to them. They validate the financing plan. They would be the ones that put the actual plan together. Typically though, we're within a few percent. So, we're going to show you a couple quick uh uh examples of these. Then at the end of the presentation, I'm hand I'm going to hand you out a larger version that's actually legible. Okay? So, if you have any questions, I'll walk

081you through that. This is always tough when we've got these smaller screens to kind of try to put spreadsheets on there. This is uh again looks like another spreadsheet like the ones you've seen, but we'll show you that it some of you if you have it on your screens there, you can see how we have the individual items. Then we have the funding source. It allows us to toggle through because you've got different ways to fund projects and not every dollar uh is uh how can I say this? The there's different rules for different funding sources. So what we're striving for is what the what's the optimal way for you to fund your project to get the biggest bang of the buck for the community, give you the most financial flexibility going forward. That's kind

082of so the tool does it isn't just a pick and choose for the items, but how it's funded as well. I know this is real eye chart. Again, we'll get you a handout in just a moment, but then this rolls up simultaneously to the financing plan. So instantaneously again you can see what a project costs, how it would be financed, and what the impact to the local commute is on a on a year-by-year basis. So the summary of of the work that we've done to date, uh the phase one project or the phase one budget, excuse me, uh current currently stands at 49 million. Again, keep in mind that that is a budget, not a price. Uh uh once the board uh uh officially se selects the projects, then we go through a detailed design

083process. That's about a 6 to9month process. And then we competitively bid all the work. But as we've got it structured right now, uh, at the 49 million, there's no tax increase. It doesn't mean it doesn't cost anything. It just won't cost any cost the taxpayers any more than they're currently paying. Okay. The original what we what we've we're now calling phase 1 A was 30.7 million. Phase 1B added to that uh is again infrastructure focused would be funded largely with health life safety funds or at least it could be if it's the district's choice if if that's how we do it but probably that'd be the most advantageous to you and then we have started working on on phase two preliminarily but phase two will focus on early childhood center potentially career and technical ed

084building potentially and then right sizing and proper programming for all spaces across the district. I heard earlier tonight how uh enrollment has dropped. I think I heard the number from 8,700 to uh 7,400 students. So again, are we are we making the best use of our space possible? That's a lot of what we do is take that comprehensive look. We have uh just started on on initially there. Uh we're ready to uh get into the design phase on phase one and then move into the planning phase on phase two following your approval. Speaking of approval, uh kind of next steps in a timeline. We're here tonight uh with introducing the the updated phase one plan. We are scheduled to meet with the business services committee uh on August 4th. I think that the idea there

085is to do more of a a deeper dive into the FIMSUM tool and kind of look at things on an item by item basis, see what items were added in and kicked out. Uh, we'd be bringing that back to the board on August 18th. Apologize. Looks like our spacing got a little goofed up here. Sorry about that. Um, on August 18th for potential consideration of phase one plan approval and phase 2 approach. I want to re-emphasize that when you're approving uh phase one, you're not approving the expenditure of $49 million. You're approving us next to go forward to the detailed design process. There's there's expense associated with that, of course. Um, but then each time that we we go out for bids, what and on that project, we'd probably have six or seven bid packages.

086Each time we'd go through a a public bidding process. We vet all the bids out. We bring them back to you back back to the board for consideration. Uh, we then award those bids. We manage those contractors. Again, you'd see all of the bids the whole way through. So you're just you would be approving the plan and authorizing us to go to the next step in the design process. We before the actual the majority of the money is spent. Those would be when the bids are brought back to you after each bid package. Okay? So we're asking for consideration of that. If you're comfortable moving ahead on August 18th, uh we'd appreciate your your go-ahhead then. If you we don't want you to move forward until you are comfortable. So, if you need more time,

087if if there's more questions, we've allowed uh time for another business services meeting, which I believe is scheduled for September 2nd. And then we'd come back to the board on September 15th if necessary. And then we would immediately upon getting the green light, we would start on uh the detailed planning work for uh phase two. The reason that these timelines are important, it's uh July, we're just starting to talk about getting ready for school again. In our business, our planning teams, our design teams are are heavily focused on 2026 and 2027 because in our world, that's right around the corner. In order to get you the best prices possible from contractors, we want to be bidding as early as possible in 2026. Summer's a very, very busy time for construction companies. they uh the earlier

088that that they're that they secure work, the better pricing we get. Okay. So, as I mentioned, if we our design process right now, if we if we uh and again, we don't want I can't emphasize enough. We don't want you to move forward until you're comfortable. But if you are comfortable, do know that a month makes a big difference because a month sooner now means we're bidding a month sooner in 2026 and it it will matter. Okay. Um, so, uh, we would be bidding, uh, we'd be in design for the rest of the year, be bidding in early 26. Uh, then we would be in heavy construction in the summers of 26, 27, and probably 28. Then concurrent with that, and then you see that we have the second half of phase one that would

089be uh, designed right on the as soon as we're done with the first half of of phase one. And concurrent with that, we would be doing the investigation and planning work for phase two. It's important that we get going on that because we want to be doing that during the school year because while we don't disrupt the learning environment, we obviously know our way around schools very very well. We want to see how the schools are really used. We so we want to be doing that during the year. We want to be doing that work throughout uh in the 2526 school year doing the the shaping of that project uh likely in the summer of 26 for approval this time you know next year that work would start to be implemented in 278 and 9.

090So kind of there is a little bit overlap between the plans. So that just gives you an idea kind of how it it it dubtales together. These our original in fact from our our design team the original Gant chart that's put together has about 12 line items to it. It's very very very detailed but we just wanted to provide you a high level overview tonight. So but that's the reason again why the timeline is laid out from approval standpoint is because it is uh uh we want to make sure we keep your project on schedule. We want to put you in the best bidding climate possible in the winter of 26. with that. Lauren, if you want to hand out, I promised that we would provide you with a hard copy. I think you have

091these in your your board packets, but um Lauren just has a sample. This isn't the complete FIM sum. It's a one sheet of the FIM sum followed by uh the uh the cash flow tool. So, it just gives you an idea and you can I believe it'll show you the level of sophistication involved. [Applause] And I guess I'd ask, would you like me to walk through how this is laid out or do you just want to have copy? I want to be respectful of your time. Sure. I mean, if you want to take a little bit of time just kind of walk through because I I I can completely understand we hand out an 11 by7 spreadsheet. It can be a little daunting. believe me it is uh uh I don't expect you and I

092tell everybody that if this makes complete sense at first you don't understand it. Okay. So it's uh but it is it is meant to be I've been using this format for 25 years. It it works extremely well. So looking at this sheet uh you should have a sheet that looks something like this. Hopefully it looks exactly like this. Okay. This one I'll get to the multicolored one in in in just a moment. Just working across this sheet from left to right, you see in the far left hand column vertically it says phase 1 A and then we have phase 1B. As we move into phase two, there'll be another column added there for for phase two. Okay? Because this is it's all going to work together. So if there's a an X in the row,

093that means it's included. If it's not Xed, it's not included. So you see moving across the table again from left to right then you have FIM number that's again facility improvement measure number we put a code number on it allows us to track that number in our systems we also have a detailed description associated with each and every improvement item and again all of these were were taken from your existing report and then just put in into our our format here then we have a brief descript brief FIM description this gives you basically so you can understand what's being done. We organize these again by building. You have the total project budget. Again, the difference between the way that we assemble our budgets and uh the previous method. Again, neither one's right or wrong. It's

094just a kind of how how the the the budgets evolve. With any project, you have what's known as the hard cost or the construction cost or the construction budget. That is kind of that, you know, think of that as your bricks and mortar, your trade contractor work. Hence the term hard cost. And then there's a soft cost. Soft cost doesn't mean you know non- essential. It just means that's the work that that's the design work. The project budget is the only one you have here. The project but budget includes both the hard cost and the soft cost. And keep in mind it's a budget. And what Nexus guarantees contractually is that once the the scope is selected, we guarantee that the project will not come in over budget. If it does, we have to redesign

095it at our expense to get it under budget. Okay? If we bid everything out, everything comes in under budget. You keep the difference. So, we make sure that your project doesn't come in over budget. We're all incented to drive the cost out. Okay? That's the project budget. So, keep in mind that's an all up all-in budget. The funding source to the right of that you see in the first line item there, it says HLS, Health, Life, Safety. Below that's fund balance. And on down the line, we we basically can toggle as we're selecting our projects now what projects do we want to do, but how are they funded? As we move across, when we toggle them in, then our our our funding mix automatically populates so we can see exactly where the funding is coming

096from to pay for the project. Make sense? Okay. As we're doing, so you can kind of imagine that if you got all these projects and you're you're picking and choosing, you're trying to come up with what's the optimal mix that rolls right into the next sheet, which is the multicolored sheet. This one, these sheets are interactive. The totals in the upper left hand corner in the white box which says selected projects. So you see phase 1 a uh fund balance projects. Then phase uh there is no phase two fund balance you know none of the phase 2 projects are are selected right now. Then uh uh then you have phase 1 a health life safety. Phase 1 B health life safety. Um, all of those again directly from the previous sheet rolls up to the

097total budget right now is 48,926,000. And then the colored boxes to the right are how the project is financed. So you've got HLS financing alt revenue uh um project financing that would would be through uh just potential use of the the county sales tax. Again, we just we show options. There's not decisions being made here. There's Dub project financing and then we show the uh approximate tax impact. Right now that says NA because the district uh your administrators have made it very clear that there will be no tax increase and we are working with again PMA and Steel to make sure right now we're able to do that. We got a little bump we have to iron out but uh that's very very doable at this stage of the game. So this will be more

098important as we roll into to phase two that we want to make sure that we also maintain that that flat tax down below. Uh the colors as you can imagine the grays line up with the grays the uh pinkish color I guess that is lines up with the pink the blue with the blue etc etc. Uh shows how the project it uh you got your expenditures which is uh how the debt is repaid. Then the project funding is where does the funding come from to cover the debt service. And in the in the yellow we are doing uh an analysis of the tax impact to make sure that again that that we're staying flat. You'll see that it does drop off. There is a a a a cliff if you will out to about uh

099five years. Uh that is uh by design your administration has been very forward thinking. That is is is uh where how phase two would be funded. That was a very quick overview, but and again keeping in mind that we worked with Steel and PMA to uh get the background information so our tool works. They would be involved with validating any solution before the board take takes action. And just to give you a little bit of a recap of where we're at in this process tonight, uh what we're hoping tonight is that you can take a first look at this. you can tell us what additional information because then we will have the August 4th business services committee meeting where Nexus is going to be there as well and we'll be talking through what the board

100needs in terms of additional information. We then will at the August 18th board meeting have a work session with the board the beginning 4 until 5:30. So, that'll really be the board's opportunity to get those questions answered and to dive into this uh in all of the detail. We know we're giving you a lot of information tonight, some of which you don't have a lot of historical context, so I don't tonight to be like, "Oh, well, I have all these insightful questions about this." I'm wanting you to start thinking about what questions you might have about this. So when we're back together on August 18th, we are prepared to answer those questions and we can get uh those conversations to a point where you feel informed as a board. On August 18th, what would happen

101is if the board feels comfortable, we will have a roll call action item on that August 18th agenda to approve this new scope. Okay. So the board has already approved uh the master facilities plan for years 1 through three. However, now as you've seen there's some new financials, there's some new parts of the scope that have been moved around. We are asking for a conceptual approval with again the knowledge that just like before every project that's $35,000 or more is going to come through the board for individual approval. But we want to make sure the board because it is a new board as well uh understands what we're doing and feels comfortable with years 1 through three. If the board approves that on August 18th, fantastic. Uh then we will start talking about years 4

102through 10 and getting just again that broad scope of where we think those next steps are. If the board says, "We're not ready. We have other questions," then we will regroup and answer those questions and we'll come back to the next business services meeting and to the September board meeting with answers to whatever questions you have um in terms of redefining that scope or whatever it is that uh you might have um questions, concerns about um and just need some more information on. Uh so it's my hope that we may be able to approve this on August 18th. Uh because as was mentioned, we've got construction, bidding deadlines, all of those different pieces. However, if we need more time, we need more time and that's okay. Um and once the board feels comfortable with where

103we at for where we are at for years 1 through three, then we will start that discussion of 4 through 10 because that includes, as you heard again tonight, that early childhood center. That's an item we want to make sure that we're way out ahead of and that the board feels comfortable moving forward with. Um and we can get some of those other big design ideas underway with again knowing that that detail will follow further down the line and that our commitment is absolutely uh to be tax neutral so that our taxpayers uh are not feeling uh a burden of this but that we are using our dollars in the best possible way that we can to ensure the longevity of our facilities and our commitment to our students and our families and our community.

104So that's my summary. Yes. Thanks. Can I still ask? You can ask all the questions and you can also we can we'll start taking some notes on what questions you need more information on. But absolutely this is your time absolutely to ask some questions. So, so hopefully simple questions um because this is a wealth of information I think of our financial situation and our debt situation and repayment situation. So, existing debt service that's that's existing bonds or debts that we are obligated to repay from prior initiatives. And I'm going to let I'm going to let Mrs. Armstrong speak to that. Yeah. So um the existing debt service includes the bonds that we just issued for health life safety in March. So that was um that bonding that we have done. Um so we restructured the

105debt that went out to 2038 which was restructuring current existing debt and we issued those bonds. Sorry I did not see that you broke those out separately. So that 30 um million there is the bonds that we were issuing the hls bond in the second column. That's the recent bond that we issued. And then this is our repayment. This is our repayment schedule for Yeah. Yes. Yep. And the existing again what I wanted to preface is that we did a a refinance of the existing debt when we did we did a restructure at the same time we did the health life safety bond issue. Okay. So that's that's our existing like debt debt service including the bond. Yep. The recent bond issue. Um, and then that sums into the total expenses column, the yellow column.

106Yeah. Yes. And then CSF, CFT revenue. What is that? That is the community school sales tax that we use. Every dollar we receive, we're abating our debt um levy. So where it says we're we have 11,000 or $11 million in total expense for the levy in 2023, we abaded 3.9 million of it. So what our taxpayers saw for the levy was only 7.7 million instead of that. So every dollar we are getting in that sales tax revenue um the district had made a commitment to the community that we would use those funds to abate the debt so that we wouldn't be levying it against them. Okay. For for the existing debt up to 2038. Yep. Okay. Well, the original commitment was just for the debt that goes through um from the prior existing debt for

107the frozen and or not frozen, sorry. Um the north campus Belvadier North. Um but when we restructured it, it took it out to 2038. Those were set to expire in 2030. when we restructured that keeps that commitment there. There is no existing commitment to continue to do that after that point. However, that will be completely up to the board whether we want to levy borrowing power against those if we want to use those for projects or if we want to continue to bait that debt. Okay. As earmarked for the next Yes. Yeah. 15 years. Okay. Um, yeah, thank you. I told you they were simple. I do not want to prevent anyone from asking any questions tonight. Uh, so please feel free to ask questions and also if you have um questions that you want

108us to prepare for, you can let me know that now or you can email me. Yeah, that was going to be my thought. They will be here. at Nexus will be here presenting at the August 4th um business services meeting to kind of um start answering some of those questions. So, if you have questions that you think of before then or during that meeting, those answers are all going to be presented at the uh August board meeting on the 18th, but they can start preparing some of those questions. If you already have thought of questions, we'll have those ready to discuss at the August 4th as well. Do you think I know in the past if it was something pretty heavy like this we as many board members as possible could make it to the

109committee meeting. Do you think that's one of these meetings? Yes. I think it would be very helpful if you can attend that August 4th meeting. However, you know, again, we're really going to have that time together, an hour and a half together on this on August 18th, too. So, if you can make it, I think that's fantastic. if you can't make it, um, we really are going to make sure you get everything you need on the 18th as well. But yeah, just the more times you hear it and the more access to it, the easier it is to get your head around it, too, I think. Okay. Any further questions for Dr. Shaw or for the folks from Nexus? Um, Mr. I know you had a question about steel and aluminum. Yes. And, um, so

110for the folks from Nexus, um, you probably already captured this in your 20 to 25% um increase for materials such as steel, aluminum, copper that's going to be going into the into these projects that's probably been captured that a good uh assumption. Yeah. Yes. The it's the what you're you're getting to is you know what I think is the the impact of tariffs because because that's the big variable, right? And um we uh we're bidding projects. In fact, the latest project we just bid was last Friday and um we were within on actually the uh mechanical work we were within 0.1%. So our budget was with we're we're generally not quite that accurate but we're typically within about 5%. But right now um you know tariffs are on again off again and um we seem

111that it our budgets because we're tracking budgets. We're bidding projects every single week so we're constantly tracking them. It seems the contractors seem to have it factored in right now cuz we're not seeing a lot of spikes. That that could change. Um but right now it's factored in kind like you're saying that 20 25%. Um it won't it's not going to be that big a piece. But to put it into context, Hans took a look at what the uh the actual percent that the copper, steel, aluminum what that is of the projects and what' you come up with? you know, we worked with the the estimating team and kind of broke down what the that 48 million looks like about um looks like about 8 to 10 million of that would be affected by copper,

112aluminum, steel, right? That's that's mechanical equipment, electrical equipment, um wiring, sheet metal, uh roof flashing. Um so that's a good percentage of it. But if we look at, you know, what if that amount of work goes up 20%. That's about that's about four to 5% of the project. Um, which is a considerable amount. Know that we've got contingency in there, right? We got 5% uh roughly 5% contingency. We've got some inflation factors built on because we know this stuff isn't going to some of it's going to get bid out in six months hopefully. Some of it's going to get bid out in nine months. So, we've got to include that. So, we've got some of that in there. Like Mike said, um we just bid out I think it was a $17 million project. We're

113within 1%. Um not that's not patting us ourselves on the back, but that was all budgeted right around the time we start talking about these these tariffs. So, we feel pretty bullish right now that that's been that's built in, but he's got a crystal ball because we don't want to overestimate and and monitor, but you're right. We don't want to come in under a bunch of years. That's a long way to us saying we're we're bullish right now. Gotcha. No, thank you for addressing that. That those are valid concerns, right, as we as a board reevaluate these projects and the price of the material and the potential impacts of terrorist. It's the our entire industry is keenly aware of it and um you know because we got got responsibility and obviously want happy clients that

114we're doing everything we can, but right now we believe we have it covered. The market seems to have it factored in for the time being. Glad that we're not trying to figure that out. Yes. Any other questions for Nexus or even Dr. Sh. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Hans. Thank you, Lauren, for being here tonight. Thank you. And again, send your questions. Send your questions. Send your questions and we will make sure we're prepared to answer those on August 4th and then again on August 18th. Okay. Um, upcoming contract renewals and reports are provided for your reference. I would like to turn the meeting over to Dr. Shugs for administrative reports. All right. Um, we have my superintendent comments which are pretty brief. Uh, for you this evening. Um, but I'll run through those very

115quickly. Uh, we have, you know, summer schools been running. Uh, we had our Buck Thunder Special Olympics. Uh the track team competed at the summer games and our students placed fourth in the mini javelin throw and second and third in the tennis ball throw and fifth in the 50 meter dash. Uh this has just been an ongoing really fantastic opportunity for our students uh to really shine. Uh so we are very excited about that. As you heard Mr. Here mentioned previously, uh we had the Andy Warhine memorial golf outing uh that took place this month. Uh Mr. Woka and Mr. Smith uh were a big part of planning that uh as well as many other people uh from our district and from our community uh who had felt the impact that Andy had made um

116on education, on students uh and uh on the community as a whole. Uh and so it was tremendous to see the outpouring I think of support uh for for Andy and Andy's family. Uh it was really a wonderful uh event and uh a lot of fun as well. So uh that was that was great and we're very grateful to everyone who helped make that happen. Um summer school, we had the discovery center uh came to summer school. Uh we were very uh excited to host them. that was done uh via a grant uh from the District 100 Foundation for Excellence in Education. Uh and that uh went very well. The students learned about weather. They created their own weather balloons. Um and that has uh been uh very important as we've looked at the variation

117of weather that we are experiencing uh this summer. And as I mentioned earlier, we have the Sarah Ames mural. Please go check that out downtown. Uh, and if you have a chance, take a look at that article in the Belvadier Republican um, about the impact of uh, Sarah Ames and uh, the great work that Michael School did to uh, put that mural up uh, to commemorate her impact here in our community. So, that's my superintendent's comments. Any questions on any of that stuff? All right, then I'm going to take us to our strategic plan updates. Are you able to get that up there on our screen for us? I'm going to take us into our endofear summary. Actually, uh so we did a midyear summary of the work that's been taking place on our strategic

118plan. Uh and then we also have done an endofear summary which really highlights uh all of the work that's happening um around uh each one of those different goal areas. Goal one, academic achievement and growth. Dr. Carson, do you want to just hit some of the highlights in this end of the year summary? I feel like many of them you've had the opportunity to vote towards like the adoption of our ELA curriculum. So, I want to celebrate that in the handbook tonight for our bilingual program. Um, we are planning for next year to continue rolling up uh math being taught in English and our dual language programs. That'll be a big uh opportunity for next year. Uh we also have our math teachers in middle school developing common assessments. Um and they're very excited about

119that work. Um excuse me. And then we've had a lot of work around how we best support our students in uh co-taught instructional classes that's been taking place. So all that will take fruition when kids come back to school here in a few weeks. Thank you so much. And would you like to highlight goal two and some of the work that's been happening there over the course of the year, Dr. Johnson? Sure. Absolutely. Um, same as to what Dr. Carson mentioned, there's things that you've already voted on and been a part of, which is awesome. Uh, specifically the stronger connections grant and then also just some of the career and college uh, pathway options. You've heard some pieces on that. So, um, I'm going to highlight that each school has what we call a castle

120team. Um, they have been meeting um, multiple times throughout the year. they've been meeting for multiple years and they do specific work for social emotional learning um based off of a rubric that is used nationally. So, just wanted to highlight those work and the work of that those teams because they they know their school and they're able to align it to the rubric. Um we've got some common things that we're working for all 10, but then there's also some leeway for something specific for their building. So, um really proud of the work that they do there. Also just wanted to mention um the two new internships. So Rosadis and Growth Dimensions uh we'll be partnering with our district and then our SSI program um which is an intervention type program is it went so well

121it is expanding to 9th grade and moving down into middle school. Thank you Dr. Johnson. I will highlight goal three for us. Uh just last month you heard um an update on our communication audit and communication plan. Uh we are very excited about that work. Uh and we are now beginning our work on our family engagement part of that project. Uh and tonight you're going to hear a little bit about the rebrand project that we've been working on as well. uh really excited overall about um our audit results and feeling like our families uh for the great most part feel uh like they hear from us and that our communication is is viable and clear. Uh but continuing to work on that information that was targeted with our stakeholder feedback that those individuals who don't

122have children in the district um and some of our community partners uh could really be strengthened. So really trying to dive uh into that over the course of this next year and again I'll be highlighting uh the rebrand project for you here very shortly and Dr. Brady regards the goal for obviously not a lot going on with the subs right now other than we are continuing uh to build u the sub pool uh so we are onboarding throughout the summer for that um as far as the aosa data is listed in there 95% of our staff um have answered u uh yes or mostly yes if they're happy with the milary school district we kind of use that as a barometer for a great place to work survey Uh we're in the process right now

123of uh uh reapplying for that and uh that survey um I think we have that scheduled to go out again like in December, early December uh to apply for Great Place to work again. And then in regard to professional development, that type of thing, uh we're gearing up for uh new teacher orientation, which will be August 11th through 13th. Um and I know Mr. Mandera uh and and uh this committee are working on the August school improvement and institute days. Uh there'll be information letters going out to our new staff and to all staff uh in mid to late July, which is right now actually as I I'm saying it. So uh this week, next week, we'll be sending out information for that to get uh get everybody ready for that. Thank you very much.

124And Mrs. Armstrong, goal five. Okay. Um we've been a very busy group. You heard um a big part of it today with the um Nexus working on that facilities master plan. Uh in last year we of course um had the AI guidance committee reviewing um all the AI platforms that we approved to go forward with Magic School. Um the technology group was also doing the whole student information system bid. So we've selected Edge Point. I think they're having their kickoff meeting very soon, couple weeks. Uh and um we did a lot uh with our health services with CPR training mandates that are now required for next school year and making um mock cardiatric response kits for um each of the schools. Um we introduced zerobased budgeting uh for our buildings and I was quite pleased

125that all of our administration took really well to that and seeing the new concept. But I continue to say that's a lot of go slow to move faster in three years of working on this. I feel like we're getting there. Um now the next step for this coming fiscal year is we're going to start working on EBF alignment and allocations so that we can start to tie all that together with the the common u knowledge now of how their budgeting is working. So um I think those uh panels is that your viewic panel over there? No, but similar similar. We're going to have about 150 of those smart panels moving into our secondary schools um this year. So, uh lots of things happening in goal five. Any questions from the board on those five goals?

126What's zero based budgeting? Again, zerobased budgeting is essentially where you're not rolling their current budgets over. They basically administration has to tell me what they think they need in those budgets and justify those needs to match that dollar. So they're basically creating a list of these are the things I'm going to buy out of this light item and justifying what that is so that they can also do project uh management within their buildings. So if they want to say this year I'm going to invest in my foods and consumer sciences class and maybe I'm not going to put so much in my construction and trades but next year we're going to do that. gives them more flexibility instead of saying everybody gets $500 this year or every person gets this. It gives them that flexibility.

127Um and also address there's some years where some schools need a little more and some schools need a little less. And um one of the the nice surprises was uh some of our schools said they needed a little less. They were having some more which made it available for some of our other schools to get some necessary needs they they had for this year. But all of them understanding there's kind of a a tradeoff in that maybe next year somebody else is going to need that. So um I was pleased that not everybody was asking for more and you know they were willing to share within their buckets. So um it was a very positive experience for their first time. Is that their responsibility as a principal? Yes. So, I've spent the last two years

128teaching them how to read their budgets and acknowledge um account numbers and understanding what goes into each of those account numbers. Really making them responsible for their purchasing, their budgeting, doing the budget amendments. We're hoping to get to a point where we won't do budget amendments except for grants that come in with carryover and doing those minor adjustments. Uh but we were allowing that really u doing it once mid year so they could realign because I started this process with teaching them to spend where it should be not necessarily where they budgeted. So this year they got two years of data to compare against where they spent their money and now tried to build a budget based on a zero amount and you know got lots of questions. Well, do I have to match this

129number? No, I want you to tell me what you need and and they really embraced that that side of it. So it was nice. Nice. Thanks. What are VSic panels? That's that smart panel over there. So instead interactive panels. So a large a large panel where you can there used to be smartboards in the classrooms with the projector and the pens and now it turns into a panel a TV. Interactive TV. Okay. Pretty cool. Any other questions on the strategic plan and the work happening there? Uh we will be having our administrative administrative retreat coming up here at the end of July where we'll be really digging into that strategic plan setting our new goals which will come before the board in September and uh October. So we are looking forward to that work. All

130right. um if we could pull up the branding update. So, one of the things I'd really hope to have for you tonight was a new brand to approve. Uh we've been meeting with our branding committee uh since May. Uh and really the goal of that uh team has been to collaboratively engage with all of our stakeholders. So, uh, again, students, staff, families, and community members, uh, to take a look at the district brand and have it become a truly meaningful, um, signature of what the district is about. Uh, we know that, um, again, people who are, uh, in the district have a pretty positive feeling about it. Uh, but we want to convey, um, what it is we feel about the district with that brand. Uh so we reviewed our current brand uh and we

131really discussed what did we want that brand to convey and how could we make it uniquely D 100. Uh so you can see as you kind of scroll through this uh some of the things that we discussed uh wanting to connect this to the mission and the strategic plan uh but also wanting it to withstand this test of time as we know we're going to continue to re-evaluate the strategic plan but a brand is something that's going to stay with us we hope for many many years in the future. Uh so what did we want the brand to convey? uh unity, community, opportunities, pride, welcoming and to look like some of those other larger districts. So those were after so much I mean really so much discussion and looking at so many brands uh we

132have come to the top two designs uh and here they are. Uh so the top design is uh from a lot of the feedback from the committee that they wanted it to look uh more abstract. So what you're looking at here is a graduation cap uh with a tassel that also uh represents a pathway. Uh then you can see uh the bottom image there is to be a book that is opened uh and going to lead you down that pathway. You also see the tagline that the um committee uh generated learn innovate lead which ties to our existing mission our existing strategic plan but we also think again endures that test of time. Okay. Um the bottom symbol there uh is a less abstract uh logo but still captures those things that the committee really

133wanted. Here there's a pathway uh to reflect the students educational journey. Again you have the book and here you have the star which is meant to be a symbol of innovation and leadership. Um, so we then sent it back to the workg group uh for their feedback. And if you scroll down, it seems pretty clear uh that they were uh they felt like the less abstract version was the direction that we should be going. Uh that this looked more like education. There's also some feedback on this about some redesigning of that star, making the star a little bit smaller, set down a little bit further, and perhaps um a little bit more abstract. Maybe it's open, maybe it's four points. Uh but the idea of this particular design uh clearly resonated um with the group

134and seemed to again uh never going to have perfect alignment. Um, just like on the cell phone team, there was heated debate uh about should this be a 100, should it be a B, should it be a symbol? Uh, and we really wanted it to be something that could stand alone. The symbol could stand alone and people would recognize it. uh we really got away from that 100 um as that standalone symbol because there was less uh less of a symbol of sort of that unity and community that we could derive from that. Uh which again really led us we looked at many different flames and books and academic symbols but again this is the one that uh rose to the top. Uh Mr. Bell anything you would add? There was a wide variety of

135options that came through and these two that came to the top are a lot better than what we started out at. I think it has been a journey, a pathway to a brand. Um, so when it says 16 responses, is that who voted? Your 16 people, correct? So when you're doing So we had a a a team of 25 maybe um that were a part of that branding team. Um so we did not send this out to the whole district at all. Uh we sent it out to our administrators and to that branding team to provide that feedback. Um and there's actually been a few more responses I think since she captured this on Friday. Uh so my question to the board is uh how do you feel about this as a potential brand? Um

136and I have it on tomorrow's board retreat as a possible item for a vote if the board felt comfortable with um moving forward with one of these brands. There's a lot of things that we need to do um if we want to roll this out at the beginning of the school year. Uh we have things like t-shirts and uh um all of our other sorts of materials that we're sort of holding on doing something with, but we don't want to rush the brand decision either. We want to make sure it resonates and it feels okay with people. So, looking for some of your feedback. You don't have to give me all of that feedback tonight because we will have an item uh tomorrow to see if this is something we want to move forward on

137or if we want to wait um and see if you want to move forward uh later in August. But thoughts, comments, questions, feedback. So the the top concept one is off the table. It's just concept two. Well, and so these are the top two concepts. Uh so do you like the top concept? No, I hate it. So that I went the opposite way. I was like, I like that. See, all I see all I see is a cigarette. Like a cigarette with smoke. Like you want to put the circle and no smoking sign. I would have never thought of it that way. That's all I see on that one. Somebody else. I can't unsee it now. I think it's cigarettes here. I like Are we going to put that on our school? area or not.

138Here we are. I think I light that on fire. Well, there was a lot of flame conversation. So, I think a lot of a lot of the feedback is that this top one looks a little bit more corporate and the bottom No wonder I like a little bit right a little bit more educational. It's hard. And this the having something that's gonna resonate with everyone is hard. So talk a little bit more about the star. You're thinking maybe make it a little smaller. So uh Mr. Lascola actually did a little work on this already to sort of bring this like the star feels a little bit big. I think the feedback we have is that the star feels a little bit big but we like the idea of the innovation and a path leading to

139that. So bringing that star down a little bit so that the path actually kind of goes into that star and it feels a little bit more um in alignment. Um that's not quite the word I'm looking for, but in alignment uh symmetrical um and also the possibility of just having it outlined in that yellow and not filled in in the yellow. So that's some of that feedback as well. Again, we'd look at, you know, really having that concept approved and then doing a little bit more fine-tuning of it to make sure we feel like this is this is the way we want to go. Uh, but I wanted to make sure that um yeah, that the board wasn't thinking that it looked like a cigarette before we uh before we went forward with it. This

140is the smoking section. We could change the colors. There's a lot of things you could do to do that. But again, to me, it seems like the feedback's pretty clear that people are looking for a little bit more traditional uh in terms of that symbol. Thoughts, comments, questions. I I feel equipping to succeed for life's journey when I look at that. So, I like that. Equipping to succeed. Shoot stars. Would we be able to see the new star by tomorrow or No, I can try I can definitely show you what Mike did. Um so for sure we have what uh Mr. Liscola did. Um and I'll try to get that done for you. Yeah, absolutely. Where did learn, educate, I mean innovate and lead come from? It really came from the team talking about um

141again the connection to our mission, our strategic plan, but also looking forward. Uh so we talked through what ter what words really resonated with us that we felt represented um district 100. Uh there was a lot of conversation obviously about learning but also about wanting to be progressive and feeling like this is a district where we do try to encourage innovation and forward thinking and to that end ending with lead uh and that we are trying to um embrace leadership in all areas from our staff and from our students. Those are three really strong words. I like that a lot. Thank you. I like that a lot, too. Uh, and I thank you. I mean, the committee really is the the people that pulled those words out of all of the concepts that we've been

142talking about. What's it cost to rebrand? Well, what does it cost depends on the rate at which we would look at turning some of those items over. Uh, so we are going to do t-shirts for the teachers at the beginning of the year. There's no cost to do them this way versus a different way. But as we look at things like signage and whatnot, uh, obviously there's going to be some cost to all of those different pieces, as with most things, what we will do is a gradual rebrand. We don't need every single sign in the district to turn over in a year, but we would want the website as they wear out as they correct. Correct. And you know, yeah, you're ordering new business cards, we're going to put the new logo on it.

143Uh so the more the more we can do now when we're doing some of those things like ordering some of those things, the better. Uh but yeah, definitely something like this takes process and it takes time and we're not looking to clean out uh every single piece of that branding. We we will definitely use envelopes and all the things that we have already. We're not throwing out the old point in time. So many things are on our website are on our you know our stationery is digital. You know it's it's easy to turn a lot of things over uh and put that brand out in front of people without making a significant investment especially because it's at the district level. Um, and we've been waiting, for example, we want to uh rebrand down here. We've

144been waiting to do that until we have uh until we have that new district logo. So, we'd like to redo this back wall space with um that that brand and like the podium like you it's it's vinyl. It'll come off and just put a new one on. It's not replacing the whole podium. Oh, I didn't know. But Dr. Carson garage sale. Vintage. Yeah. I think I have a children first one from first started in the closet, too. We still wear them for fun. A walking piece of history. A walking piece of history. Create our own museum. So, we'll bring this back tomorrow and see and see how we feel. Uh, and again, if this is something that needs to wait, I that is totally fine. But if if it resonates with you and you feel

145feel good, know that the committee spent a lot of time on it. We went through I mean a hundred designs. I mean right like at least uh so this is not our first uh take. This really uh has involved a lot of um a lot of collaboration and a lot of ownership of a lot of different people. Okay. All right. Um, that is my rebrand. Uh, what else do we have on our Just to follow up on Dr. Shug's comments. We have some time to think about these options for tomorrow night. So, think about them and how they set in with you and uh, you know, hopefully we'll be at a point tomorrow night to be able to vote on it if that's what you so choose. If that is what you so choose. And

146I think there is nothing else I need to highlight for you in um in those admin reports for tonight. So, okay, that's all I've got. Thank you, Dr. Shug. Um let me see here. Well, we have a list of upcoming board meetings and events that you'll see there on the uh the agenda. Moving on, do I have a motion and a second to go into closed executive session? Regarding section two, heading C, exception sub number one of the open meetings act to discuss the appointment, appointment, compensation, discipline, performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal council or the public body. Second. All right. Um, member Hal made the motion. Member Tig seconded the motion to go into executive session. Roll call, please. Mrs. H. Hi. Mr. Piggy. Hi. Mr. Mueller. Hi.

147Mr. Hempy. Hi. Mr. Diesel. Hi, Mrs. Young. Hi, Mr. Herrera. Hi.